With the holidays fast approaching, it is important to assess your restaurant marketing plans for success this season. Your plans may include new menu items, community involvement programs, increasing catering sales, advertising and many more. One area of importance that is often neglected is the role your servers play in the guest experience. No matter […]

2017 has been a difficult year for many restaurants. The restaurant industry continues to change in many ways driven by the choices customers have. Many of the choices are facilitated by technology and the options it offers us to make decisions. Let’s take a closer look at just two ways in which technology has impacted […]

Day in a day out you work at your passion of building your restaurant business. You have a vision and a dream of what success is like etched in your mind. You work hard every day to make it happen. Then you wake up and look around you. Reality sets in, you are running from […]

Restaurant leadership is like being the head coach of a professional football team. Depending on your business, you team may be large or it could be a small handful of players. Either way, it takes a leader to get all the parts functioning independently and producing a product as a team. Think of the football team. You have the […]

Most restaurant owners are faced with problems every week. There are a lot of balls juggling in the air every day. Some are handled flawlessly; some balls are dropped. The question remains how can you become a better juggler. The best jugglers practice a lot and have coaches to help them perfect their act. If […]

With many of our clients, we utilize a Restaurant Reputation Management tool to monitor what is being said by their customers on the review sites. We see the good bad and the ugly side of consumer comments about many restaurants across the country. It truly becomes obvious as to why some restaurants are very successful […]

No, this is not a blog about the Dr. Seuss book, but it is a story about places you might wind up at. Learn about how digital maps can impact your restaurant’s reputation. As a Restaurant Coach, I often use Google Maps when I travel. In many areas, I am not familiar with the towns and […]

The year has come to a close and the industry sources show that the final quarter of 2015 had the worst traffic growth since the first quarter of 2014. Where have the my restaurant customers gone? Some specific markets are doing well such as California but others have experienced significant declines. Industry sources site such […]

Over the past few years, many restaurant owners I have met with have been very skeptical of review sites such as Yelp or TripAdvisor. They contended that the reviews are false, misleading or competitors just writing bad reviews about them. In some cases they claim that Yelp was misleading in its representation of reviews. Recently […]

Restaurant Margins are tight, we all know that. Rising food cost, minimum wage increases, and competitive pressures make a day to day impact. It’s a tough business, every penny counts, but are you getting every penny your restaurant is earning? I’m sure your distributor is passing along all of the allowances that they get from […]

November is upon us and the holiday planning is set in place for most restaurants. Gift card promotions in place and holiday parties are booked. Fortunately gasoline prices are dropping which will free up discretionary spending. The challenge is to drive traffic into your restaurant and away from the big box stores. Promotions on social […]

Over the past few weeks I have visited with many restaurant owners to discuss what their restaurant marketing programs are and the results they are getting. Some are doing great while others need help in building the business with effective marketing programs. Throughout my conversations, it became apparent that many restaurants are overspending on programs. […]

When was the last time your restaurant’s website made you money? The majority of restaurant websites that I take a look at are not really helping restaurant owners increase revenue. Yes, a website is designed to create awareness and promote a professional image, but it can also drive new traffic and create new revenue streams for […]

Where has the customer traffic gone? In recent meetings with clients, the focus has really shifted on how do we build customer traffic counts. The NRA data confirms that customer traffic counts have been declining steadily for several years. Restaurant sales have shown minor increases largely due to price increases. The question still remains the […]

Restaurant’s Changing Lives! That’s a powerful statement. Recently I was in Philadelphia and had lunch at a Maggiano’s Restaurant. When the waiter put down the menu, there was an additional menu in which a percentage of the proceeds were donated to the Make a Wish Foundation. A great program to help those in need. Taking […]